Animation in America

Animation in America

Throughout history, animation has been a constantly evolving source of cultural and political satire. It continuously touches upon issues of race, sexuality, politics, and the general social structure of American culture. Due to its broad capabilities of expression animation has the ability to create television shows that are both amusing to children and thought provoking for adults. This can even be seen with some of the first animated shorts ever made. During the Great Depression, the rise in cinema's popularity gave rise to animations popularity. This time is often referred to as the Golden Age of cartoons where the animator had control. Unfortunately around the 1960's cartoons fell into the dark ages where the power was taken away from the cartoonist in an attempt to make as much money as possible. However within the past decade there has been a rise in quality animation with the creation of such shows as The Simpsons and such networks as Comedy Central and Cartoon Network.

From the beginning, animation has touched upon such controversial issues as race and war. These cartoons are so controversial that many of them are not aired Fig. 1: Bosko and Honey in Hold Anything (WB 1930)

anymore. The most perfect example would be Warner Brothers who aired their first cartoon in 1929. The Cartoon was named Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid and starred a character named Bosko who was a stereo typed African American boy, who looked like a monkey more than a human (see Fig. 1). These cartoons, intentionally or not, portrayed an image of the social culture at that time:

"We never knew what he was," Ising claimed in an interview, years later. Actually, despite his little black animal nose, audiences could easily see that he was a caricatured black boy Ð'-- unacceptably stereotyped by today's standards, but not mean-spirited, nor considered insulting by the standards of the time" -Don Markstein's Toonopedia

The creator of these cartoons, Leon Schlesinger, then created Looney Tunes in 1930 followed by Merry Melodies in 1931. Originally they were made as two distinct series, however these two shows would become indistinguishable in the later years. These cartoons were also used as cultural satire, in fact a handful of these cartoons made around World War II are no longer aired and were made unavailable for sale due to their racial stereotypes of African Americans, Germans, Japanese, Italians, and Jews. One of the more popular characters of the series, Speedy Gonzalez, was also made unavailable due to its depiction of Mexicans. This has been discouraging to some animation enthusiasts who feel that these shorts should be open to the public. The impact of World War II along with the Disney animators strike of 1941 lead to the slow downfall of cartoons that some refer to as the dark ages of cartoons.

The dark age of cartoons is a term not to be taken at face value. Its use is simply to distinguish between the Golden Age of Cartoons. John K., the creator of Ren and Stimpy, distinguishes the dark age of cartoons as the time where power was taken from the animator and given to the network. The era can be epitomized by the cartoons of the 1960's. It must be understood that many of the cartoons discussed in the above paragraph were made to be in a movie theatre. When television was invented, and more specifically, made affordable to most people and not limited to prime time, it became a staple in a persons every day life. Each of the new born networks had to create and produce their own shows. When it came to creating cartoons, this lead to a dramatic change in power structure giving birth do the dark ages of cartoons. Contrary to the silver screen power arrangement, networks created their own cartoons and used animators as pawns. This coupled with the race to create newer shows in bulk lead to what I refer to as assembly line cartoons. These are cartoons created from a basic qualitative equation where writers sit around a table and build a show on what has worked before. Many people show a sort of nostalgic admiration for these cartoons such as Scooby Doo, the Flintstones, and the Jetsons, while others show distaste for their repetition and bad jokes. While these cartoons had something's to offer as cultural satire, they was little intertextuality and were often repetitive in their structure. As an example The Flintstones and the Jetsons were obvious parodies of the Honeymooners. Often times any political or cultural satire was found only in the situation the show was based on. Bill Cosby's Fat Albert was created to relate to children from urban black communities and therefore says a lot about that environment at that time; the jokes were still lame though. Atom Ant and Secret Squirrel was a response to the James Bond craze of that generation, however stayed the course of slapstick humor and cheesy one liners. Though these cartoons had something's to offer, their jokes were lame and many of them were very unimaginative. It wasn't until the 1980's and 90's that a sort of revolution began for cartoons.

The most distinct beginning of this revolution was the creation of The Simspons, and for the younger audiences Ren and Stimpy. These cartoons along with many others offered a newer, dirtier cultural satire that could relate to much wider audience in a more profound way. The reason for this? Good old-fashion evolution. Networks began selling and buying shows instead of trying to write them themselves. It was only a matter of time before a network would buy a show created by some eccentric in the hopes of finding something new. Almost simultaneously, networks everywhere started coming out with cartoon shows created for the new generation of cartoon enthusiasts. MTV created a whole block of cartoons after the creation of Bevis and Butthead when they realized the shows popularity, releasing shows like The Maxx, Aeon Flux, and Liquid Television. Unfortunately, as usual, good TV shows are often ahead of their time and don't last long. Many of the great cartoons created in that time period, including TheTick, Rocko's Modern Life, and Ren and Stimpy, did not last more than two or three seasons before they were canceled. This was not necessarily a bad thing. Soon after their cancellation networks would realize the potential of these more mature cartoons and seek newer and better cartoons to take their place. This revolution of good animation paved the way for adult animation especially once South Park and Adult Swim was created.

South Park, probably one of the most controversial cartoons aired today, leaves no ground untouched. The show, along with Cartoon Networks Adult Swim, represents the new age of quality adult animation